Towns

dogs

There’s a special town meeting coming up for West Tisbury, on Tuesday June 5. It seems to be generating some confusion about the dog situation on Lambert’s Cove Beach. It would be great if no time were wasted at the town meeting clearing up the confusion, so I would like to politely offer clarity on three particular points here.

The long-running debate over dogs on Lambert’s Cove Beach isn’t over yet.

West Tisbury voters, who agreed three weeks ago at their annual town meeting to let residents walk their dogs on the beach on summer mornings, are being asked back to a special town meeting on June 5 to decide whether they want to pay to enforce good behavior by owners and their pets. The warrant is expected to ask voters to back funding for a seasonal assistant animal control officer to patrol the beach, as well as to consider bylaw changes addressing leashes and litter.

Aquinnah selectmen took disciplinary action this week against a dog owner whose Labrador retriever bit a houseguest in the face.

Selectmen learned that a yellow Lab rescue dog, Mac, belonging to Ariana Feldman, bit Benjamin Higgins in the face on Jan. 6 in a social situation, resulting in 32 stitches. Mr. Higgins was visiting Ms. Feldman for dinner. This was the dog’s second biting incident.

Tisbury selectmen were called on last week to mediate a barking dog dispute.

Since last spring Nick Mosey claims he has had to withstand relentless barking from a group of five Shetland sheepdogs on an abutting property on West Spring street. But Mr. Mosey told the selectmen his formative upbringing in postwar London prevented him from contacting the town earlier about the problem.

Vampire bats share blood with sick bats too ill to get their own. Who would have thought? Rats laugh when tickled. Who would have thought? A biologist recounted how his dog followed a cart carrying the body of a mule who had been his companion for 12 years. When the mule was buried, the dog walked slowly over to the grave of his friend and wailed. Who would have thought?

The contentious and sometimes emotional debate over the possible euthanization of two Akitas came to a conclusion this week when the West Tisbury selectmen ordered the animals into the ownership of an off-Island rescue group rather than destroy the dogs. Per the agreement between the town and the dogs’ owners, the dogs are never to return to the Island.